writer, editor, modernist, and geek

Why Are You Listening to Me? (Another poem by a white person you shouldn’t bother to read)

Why Are You Listening to Me?

Nothing I can say will carry the weight
Of dead and dying and broken and bloody and forgotten
Victims of a system that sees them not
And a public that sees them only for a moment
As a hashtag, as a name on a protest sign
As a mugshot thrown up by media who sells the image
Of a deserving victim, somehow, instead of father
Mother, soldier, sibling, student, angel child

Nothing I can say will lessen the weight
Of anxious tears spilling down the cheeks
Of yesterday’s mother or wife, bearing rushed witness
Desperate for her loss to be heard and felt
In 60 second clips, on the top of every hour
For a day, at most, until another mourner is queued up
An endless cycle of news and blood: wash, rinse, and repeat

Nothing I can say will cast off the weight
Of utter certainty that tomorrow’s headlines
Will be the same as yesterday’s and today’s
Where only the names are changed
And no one’s innocence is protected
And every death is justified

Nothing I can say will transform the weight
Carried by those whose black and brown bodies
Are burdened by the hundred million ways
They are judged, thwarted, held down, beaten, and murdered
For living in a world which centers my whiteness
Every time I open my mouth to speak

So don’t.
Don’t forget them.
Don’t settle for a mug shot.
Don’t limit their grief to a moment.
Don’t let the days and deaths all blend together.
Don’t listen first or most to those white voices you find familiar.
Find the words, screams, pain, and hurt of those affected, and let them speak to you, instead.